Category: Maps

Such is the beauty of open data that when I saw the excellent Portland: The Age of a City by Justin Palmer, I immediately wanted to do something similar, but for my town. The people at the government office (GURS) were kind enough to provide me with the files, and after some coding, here it is.

It’s an exploration of how the city grew through the last century. Blue is old, violet younger, res still younger, bright red the youngest.

Here’s the number of structures built by years. I was able to identify causes for some spikes in building activity, but not all:

1899: four years after the big earthquake,

1919: rebuilding after WW1? I’m not sure there was much destruction here,

1929: more building – in 1929 Ljublaana became the capital of Dravska banovina,

1949: rebuilding after WW2,

1959, 1969, 1979, 1989: might be effects of Yugoslav loans, but I suspect it’s more of an effect of administrative laziness, resulting in entering new buildings into evidence at the end of each decade,

2004: the last surge of prosperity in independent Slovenia.

Generally, it’s been going downhill from 1969 on. The best spots were probably taken by then.

Here’s a animation of the whole thing. It shows city evolution between years 1500 and 2013, since there’s not much happening before that.

One Sunday I woke up to incessant and very loud tolling of nearby church bell. It was 9 o’clock in the morning. It didn’t seem fair that an institution can cause so much noise so early. As I work hard during the week, run almost every day, and write software, sometimes until late, I would very much prefer to sleep. The clergy would probably say that honest Christians are already awake at that time, so I’m no good anyway.

I then decided to research the matter. A number of facts surfaced, the most startling of which is a state decree, which states that church bells are not categorized as noise. If an inspector came to my house, measured sound levels while this was going on, and found out that they exceed proscribed levels, he would not be able to fine the aforementioned institution. He would probably bill me for the expenses of his time. But I digress.

Action was taken: city geometry was imported into computer along with church bell coordinates. Aggregate sound pressure for each building was calculated, then ranged so it could be visualized. Additionally, a point where there is least such noise was calculated. You can see results below. The point with least noise is on the green marker in the lower left corner. Lucky owner of that house.

Note: please notify me before embedding this map in your page.

I have to admit that the calculation is naive. It doesn’t take into account the elevation model, neither it accounts for building heights. Sound reflection is also ignored. But my curiosity was satisfied. I do live in the red zone.

Here are same maps on different scales. One is for entire country of Slovenia.

Edit: after this post went viral and other media (Dnevnik.si) published their own versions linking to me, I feel compelled to clarify my position about church bells. Personally, that is, as a person, and not a member of any organization, I’m bothered by long intervals of loud tolling on Sunday mornings. I’m told by other people they don’t like that either, and some other people point out that any attempt at playing music at this volume at similar hour of day would not end well.

I do somewhat like single chimes announcing hours of day, even at night. It’s a part of urban environment, and I’d probably subconsciously miss it should they quit. I’m not against Catholicism, the Church, or faith of any denomination.